Postwar Settlements Through Executive Agreements

As The War in Europe enters its decisive phase, public attention in the United States is being directed more and more to the difficulties that may arise when peace treaties are submitted to the Senate with a request for its consent to their ratification. Little notice has been taken of the possibility that many international readjustments after the present war may be effected through executive agreements, rather than by formal treaties which need approval by two-thirds majorities in the upper house.

Total victory by the United Nations and unconditional surrender by the Axis powers would remove any necessity for such a peace conference as was held at Versailles after the close of the last war, and any need of signing peace treaties with Germany, Italy or Japan. Postwar arrangements, both political and economic, may be worked out by the United Nations alone. To be binding upon the United States, such arrangements—if cast in the form of executive agreements—may not have to be submitted to the Legislative Branch at all; at most, they would require approval by simple majorities in the two houses of Congress.

Senate Concern for Maintenance of Its Authority

The reported intention of the Executive Branch to make wide use of executive agreements in effecting postwar settlements has been cited several times in Senate debate at the 1943 session of Congress. “We are being told,” said Senator O'Mahoney (D., Wyo.) during debate on extension of the Trade Agreements Act, “that it will be unnecessary to end this war by a treaty of peace.” In debate on the Panama Claims Agreement, Senator Clark (D., Mo.) said it was “common talk in the State Department that there is no intention of submitting to Congress the terms of the peace settlement”; that it is planned instead to arrange the peace terms by executive agreement “subject only to the President's approval.” In the opinion of Senator Taft (R., O.): “The Constitution wisely provides that treaties must be approved by the Senate, but more and more the President is whittling away that provision of the Constitution.”